


Memories Returned

by PhoenixDowner



Series: Zine Fics [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Background Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Kingdom Hearts χ Spoilers, Mild Blood, POV Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Wayfinder Trio (Kingdom Hearts), Zine: Kingdom Heals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28529121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixDowner/pseuds/PhoenixDowner
Summary: While searching for Sora in the Realm of Darkness, Ven's memories return. If he's to face the future, he must first deal with his past. But despite the hardships, his friends are with him every step of the way. Written for the Kingdom Heals zine.
Relationships: Aqua & Terra & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Aqua & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Strelitzia & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Terra & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Zine Fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675531
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28
Collections: Kingdom Heals





	Memories Returned

Searching for Sora in the Realm of Darkness definitely wasn’t easy, but with Terra and Aqua by his side, Ven knew he could handle anything. Heartless, creepy jagged scenery, shadows lurking everywhere—all of it seemed manageable when he was with them. After the years they’d spent apart, it was nice to feel like a family again, especially because they were helping the guy who had made it all possible. 

He just hadn’t expected to find _this._

“The Realm of Darkness messes with your mind and twists what’s in your heart,” Aqua had warned him, but he’d only partly listened because hey, things couldn’t be so bad when he was with his friends, right? 

Wrong. All it took was one misstep, one wrong turn, and he found himself whisked inside an old abandoned house. It was dark, and he shuddered as he took a step forward and the floorboards creaked beneath him. The wood was damp to the touch and smelled like mildew, and he wiped his hand on his pants, his nose wrinkling.

“Do I know this place?” he muttered, more to himself than anything. Was this some lingering memory, some forgotten shadow that he—

A nearby door creaked open, and he froze. That girl standing in the doorway. He knew that girl. Her long orange hair was in pigtails, and she was holding a Chirithy in one arm and a tattered book in the other. 

“Strelitzia? Is that you?” Why had he forgotten her before this moment?

She smiled, but her face was too ashen and her lips were too blue and her eyes were too dull.

“Hi, Ven. It’s nice to see you again.” She was closer to him now, but it was like she hadn’t moved her feet at all. If Ven didn’t know any better, he’d think she was just gliding over the ground. 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t be friends when I was still alive,” she said. “I always did want to be your friend.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?” She stopped moving, and her head drooped. “When the darkness was split off from you.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

Did she mean Vanitas or something? But that had happened so long ago now, surely—

“You really don’t remember, do you? Look at your eyes in that mirror.”

Ven glanced in the mirror she’d just indicated and gasped. It was cracked and reflected a twisted, fractured version of him. His eyes were yellow and darkness was swirling off of him, too. As he met Strelitzia’s lifeless eyes again, he realized why.

“No, I didn’t—I _couldn’t_ have—”

“You did,” she said, her voice heavy, “and it’s been haunting you ever since. Your mind may have forgotten, but your heart remembered what the darkness made you do. And now at last, your memories can manifest themselves.”

Ven couldn’t speak, couldn’t even cry out as his heart thudded in his chest and the room spun around them. In the distance he heard laughter, this horrible laughter—

“My big brother’s gonna come after you when he remembers, you know,” she said as she readjusted the tattered book in her hands. “He’s very protective of me.” 

A few scattered pages fell out of the book and went all over the place. Each one represented a different moment from that awful, awful day. That day he had shut out of his memory until now.

“No, please, I didn’t mean to, that wasn’t me, that _thing_ was controlling me—”

“I know,” she said, her face grim. “That’s why I came. I know it wasn’t your fault, and I want you to forgive yourself for what happened. It’s been haunting you for so long, and yet you won’t let it go. And until you let it go, I can’t be free either.” Her lip trembled as she clutched her Chirithy harder. “ _Please_ , let me go.”

“Strelitzia—”

He reached for her, but she was already starting to fade. 

“Take care, Ven,” she said, then smiled sadly. “I hope you find peace.”

His fingers nearly brushed her hand, but then she was gone. Faded into motes of light. All that was left was the darkness—the darkness and the laughter that made his skin crawl. The laughter belonged to a voice from the shadows, a dark, twisted version of his voice, for the creature had no voice of its own. It had to steal other voices to speak. 

He could feel its golden eyes staring at him, and those eyes were borrowed, too. The entity was a copycat, a parasite; it had no shape or form of its own.

“Why?” he demanded. “Why did you make me do such a thing?”

“Why not?” the creature shot back. “We did what we had to do to be where we needed to be.”

“No, _you_ did that. You used my body to—Don’t you dare drag me into this!” 

“Or what, you’ll cry?” the voice taunted. “Face it, Ventus, you’re a killer, just like me.”

Ven glared in the direction of those creepy eyes. “I’m not! We’re completely different!”

“Then why are your hands covered in blood?”

He gasped as he looked at them. They were bright red, and the red dripped down and landed on the rotting wood floors as soft orange petals. 

“See? You’re a killer. Maybe I was the one controlling you, but _you_ were still the one who did it.”

A lump built in Ven’s throat. “No, I didn’t want this, I never wanted this—”

“Doesn’t matter. You still killed her. Tell me, Ventus, what will your friends think when they find out?”

Ven froze. It hadn’t occurred to him what his current friends would think if they found out about Strelitzia’s death. When he’d confessed the first time around, Ephemer and Brain had defended him, Skuld too, but—

What would Terra and Aqua think? And what would Sora think? Unwittingly harboring a killer in his heart for years, healing the heart of that killer when he had no idea what Ven had done, then saving that killer from death at a great cost to himself—

“Poor Ven-Ven, his friendie-wendies will hate him when they find out~” the creature said in a singsong voice, one moment its voice coming from one direction, the next its voice coming from a different direction. 

Ven sank to the ground and clutched his chest. Cold fingers wrapped around his heart and squeezed, and his eyes were hot with tears. 

“It should’ve been me,” he choked out as the tears streamed down his cheeks. “Why am I the one who got to live when Strelitzia’s dead and gone?” 

The creature said nothing as Ven sobbed. How could he have ever forgotten her? Why was he here when she should be instead? His friends would hate him when they found out. That was all he was good for, letting his friends down. First his old friends, then Terra and Aqua, and now Sora too. 

“That’s right,” the darkness murmured in his ear. “You couldn’t stop me from killing Strelitzia. What makes you think you’ll be able to save Sora? I’ll ruin any attempt you make. Face it, Ventus, you’re a failure and an imposter. You weren’t supposed to be here. You killed Strelitzia so you could take her place.”

The creature was right. He was a failure, and he didn’t deserve a Keyblade. Didn’t deserve to be called a hero when he’d done something heroes never should. He’d be better off just disappearing.

He wiped his eyes. “Terra, Aqua, I’m sorry, I can’t—”

“Ven! _Ven!_ ”

A light pierced the darkness and reached towards him, splitting the roof of the house and making several of the supports collapse. He wiped his eyes and looked up.

“Terra? Aqua?”

Knowing they were here for him, that they’d come for him despite everything, lit a spark deep in his heart. The creature, on the other hand, hissed and growled and spat. But Ven ignored it and struggled to his feet, focusing on the light instead.

“Hang in there, we’re coming!” came Aqua’s voice. 

Terra added, “Whatever’s got you down there, don’t listen to it!” 

The light grew brighter and brighter till it reached him and pulled him out of the nightmare, and his eyes flew open. His breathing was heavy and his eyes watered, and it took him a moment to realize where he was. Still in the Realm of Darkness, the dark sky and the jagged rocks all around indicated as much, but lying down on his sleeping bag and pillow with Terra and Aqua hovering over him. 

“Ven?” Aqua asked, her concerned face hovering over him. “What happened?”

He rolled over onto his side and curled up into a ball, shutting his eyes in the hopes it would help him calm down. But tears squeezed out instead and dripped down his face. 

“I’ll be fine,” he said, not sounding fine at all. “Just gimme a second.”

Terra and Aqua didn’t know about the darkness that had been following him for years; they only knew about Vanitas, and he wasn’t sure how to tell them. What would they even think once they found out? That their so-called friend was harboring this awful, awful creature that had forced Ven to kill an innocent girl? The creature was right. It didn’t matter that Ven hadn’t wanted to do it; he’d done it all the same, and that was what mattered. 

“Ven, whatever happened in there isn’t real,” Terra said as he put a fluffy green blanket over him. “It was a nightmare, that’s all.”

“It _was_ real,” Ven said under his breath as he clutched the blanket. “That’s the worst part.”

Aqua rested her hand on his shoulder. “How come? What’s wrong?” 

“I…”

“It’s okay, you can tell us,” Terra said.

Ven took a deep breath and sat up. One of the things the three of them had vowed to do after being reunited was get better at the whole communication thing, because sucking at it had led to the mess they’d found themselves stuck in for over a decade.

Terra ruffled his hair, and Aqua smiled and squeezed his shoulder. He reached for his Wayfinder out of instinct so he could fiddle with it, only remembering that it was a memorial now for Master Eraqus. Besides, with Terra and Aqua by his side, he didn’t really need it anymore. 

“You guys… don’t really know much about my life before Xehanort brought me to the Land of Departure,” he said at last, unable to meet their eyes. “And to be honest, I didn’t really remember much of it either, but ever since we came here to search for Sora, it’s been coming back.” 

Something about this place, where shades and shadows lurked, was jogging his memory.

“As nightmares?” Aqua asked with a frown.

Ven scratched his cheek. “Unfortunately, yeah. There was a lot that wasn’t, um, very good.” 

Terra’s face twisted into a scowl; even now he would go into protective parental mode at the drop of a hat on Ven’s behalf. 

“Anyway, I guess I shouldn’t beat around the bush anymore, because you guys deserve to know. I, um, I’m not from this time.” Ven winced as he watched their faces for their reactions. “I’m from the first Keyblade War.” 

To say that they were surprised would be an understatement. Aqua’s mouth dropped open, and Terra’s eyes went wide. Their faces cycled through a dozen different emotions as they tried to process what Ven had just told them.

Aqua managed to recover first, and when she did, she said, “What? But how is that even possible?”

“There were these… pod things, that we used to travel to the future. We landed… we landed in Twilight Town.”

The memories were coming back now, flooding back all at once. He could picture the shape of the pods, the blinding white color, the view out the window. Ephemer’s sad smile as he sealed the pod and said goodbye—

“Ephemer… Ephemer stayed behind,” Ven said, his throat choking up. “But me and Skuld and Lauriam and Brain—”

Terra tilted his head. “Ephemer? Who’s Ephemer? And who are Skuld and… all those other people?”

“My friends.” Ven couldn’t help the tears that were in his eyes. “I don’t know where they are. We got separated, and then I forgot all about them when Xehanort split my heart in two, and for all I know they’re—they’re—” 

Aqua gathered him into a hug. “Shhhh, it’s okay.”

He was kinda embarrassed by how easily the tears flowed from his eyes, but he could really use some comfort right now. Terra wrapped his arms around him and Aqua, and with their combined efforts, he was already feeling a little better. 

“We’ll help you find your friends,” Terra promised.

Aqua reached into one of her pouches for a hankie. “If they came with you, then that was what, sixteen years ago?” she said as she handed it to Ven.

He took it from her and nodded as he wiped his eyes. “They’d all be adults now. I’m the only one still stuck as a teen,” he added a little grumpily, and that made Terra and Aqua chuckle. 

Still, it felt nice to talk about his old friends like they were still doing okay. Heck, for all he knew, they might be. He shouldn’t listen to the voice of the darkness. It was just trying to use him and manipulate him. 

Speaking of the darkness, though, he should probably tell Terra and Aqua about that too. 

“There’s more,” he said as he grasped the blanket more tightly around himself. “And you deserve to know it. I’m not who you think I am. Something’s been haunting me for years now, and it followed me when I came to this time. It must’ve used my heart to get here.”

“Vanitas?” Aqua said with a frown. 

“Not him, though I guess it also kinda _is_ him…” 

This whole situation was messy and complicated, how was he supposed to explain it? Terra and Aqua just looked confused, and he couldn’t say he blamed them.

“The best way I know how to put it is that Vanitas is a manifestation of the creature,” he finally said. “It used my heart and Sora’s body to make an appearance for itself because it needed a physical form. But it’s older than Vanitas and has its own existence.” 

“And where is it now?” Terra asked quietly.

Ven swallowed and avoided their eyes. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do,” Terra said, and Ven felt like crawling under the blanket and never coming out. But then he felt Aqua’s hand over his, and he worked up the courage to continue.

“It’s been haunting me again, ever since we came to the Realm of Darkness. I think it’s… I think it’s still connected to me somehow.” He fiddled with the blanket, watching it crease and straighten in his trembling hands. “It might even still be inside my heart.”

There, it was out in the open now. He wouldn’t blame Terra and Aqua one single bit if they ditched him and ran far, far away. That was the smart thing to do, even if it meant—

“Then we’ll just have to free you from it,” Aqua said, as if she were merely suggesting what to do about dinner, as if there was no doubt in her mind that they could free him. 

Terra nodded, his face perfectly calm. “Next time you’re about to get sucked into one of those nightmares, Aqua and I will come along too. If we all fight it together, it won’t stand a chance.”

Ven stared at them both. He couldn’t believe how calmly they were handling this. They’d been more shocked that he was from a different time than the news that they’d have something worse than Vanitas to deal with.

“Just like that? You’re okay with me being haunted, possibly possessed, by some ancient darkness that used me to come to this time for whatever messed up plans it has in mind?”

Terra and Aqua exchanged glances and shrugged. 

“I was possessed by Xehanort,” Terra pointed out. “But you and Aqua didn’t let that stop you from trying to reach me.”

“And the darkness took a hold of my heart too, but you encouraged Sora to save me and helped him make the connection.” Aqua smiled sadly. “Ven, did you really think we’d give up on you that easily? After everything we’ve been through?”

Ven hung his head. “No, I just… don’t know what I did to deserve friends like you guys.” 

“You’re you, that’s what matters,” Terra said with a grin as he ruffled Ven’s hair. 

Aqua nodded. “You’re our friend, and we’re glad you’re a part of our lives.”

“I don’t think you’d be glad if you knew what I’ve done,” he said, his voice cracking. There was still something else, the worst part of it all. 

“Ven?” Aqua asked. She reached into her pouch again for another hankie. Ven took it and fiddled with it. The last gift she’d probably ever want to give him. 

“Whatever it is, whatever’s troubling you, you can tell us,” Terra said. “I promise we’ll listen.”

Ven took a deep, shuddering breath before speaking again. “The darkness… It made me do something awful.” 

No, that wasn’t the full story. Ven was just trying to relieve his guilt. The darkness made him do it, yeah, but it was still his hands that dealt the killing blow. His hands that had ended Strelitzia’s life. He had to own up to that.

“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault!” he cried out, making Terra and Aqua flinch. Now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop, either. “Strelitzia’s dead, and I was too weak to stop it from happening! I killed her. I killed her with my own two hands! It doesn’t matter that the darkness made me do it. I’m still her murderer.” 

Terra and Aqua looked like they’d seen a ghost, their faces were so ashen, and he couldn’t bear to look at either of them anymore. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Strelitzia didn’t deserve to die. It should be him instead. Why didn’t he fight the darkness and stop it? Why was he so weak? Even now he couldn’t do the one thing she’d asked him to. He couldn’t let her go because her blood was still all over his hands.

“The darkness made you kill her?” Aqua said, her voice low, and he nodded and shrank away from her. This was it. This was the moment she and Terra were gonna give up on him forever and abandon him here. It was what he deserved, anyway.

“You should leave,” he told them. “Who knows what else the darkness will make me do—”

Instead, he felt their arms wrapping around him. And the moment they touched him, the memories poured out of his heart all at once and into their hearts. He didn’t know what was happening, how this was even possible. He just knew it _was_ happening, like the connections Sora was always talking about were really real. Maybe it was a final gift from him, reaching beyond the grave because Ven couldn’t keep all of this locked up inside anymore. The moment the darkness took over, how he couldn’t get rid of it, the cry his heart made when Strelitzia crumpled to the ground. All of it came pouring out of his heart all at once, and he couldn’t make it stop. It was like a volcano erupting or an ocean wave crashing. And it reduced Terra and Aqua to tears. They wept and wept and wept, and he cried along with them.

“Poor Strelitzia,” Aqua choked out between sobs. “To think, you’ve kept this bottled up inside you all this time.” She shuddered and hugged him tighter. “I’m so, so sorry, Ven.”

Ven buried his face in her shoulder and sobbed. “I never wanted it to happen… I’ve hated myself ever since…”

“I know something of how that feels,” Terra said, his voice breaking. “But you have to remember, as awful as Strelitzia’s death was, there wasn’t just one victim that day. There were two.”

Ven leaned back a little and stared at Terra. He didn’t… blame Ven for what happened? He thought Ven was a victim too?

Aqua cupped his cheek. “You thought that all this time, what happened is your fault?”

He nodded. “I was too weak to stop it. My hands are the ones that did it. Of course it’s my fault.”

A fresh wave of tears rolled down her cheeks as she grabbed his hands and held them tight. “No! Who told you that?”

“It was the darkness you told us about earlier, wasn’t it?” Terra said grimly. “It’s been lying to you all these years. We know you, Ven. We know you’d never do something like that. That’s what really makes my blood boil. That _thing_ forced you of all people to do this and then has the gall to blame you for what it did.” 

Maybe Terra and Aqua were right. Maybe it really wasn’t his fault. All these years, he’d thought it was, but then… Why did Strelitzia tell him it wasn’t his fault either? She’d even told him she wanted him to forgive himself. If it truly _was_ his fault, she wouldn’t have said that. 

Maybe, if he could find it in him to forgive himself, he could finally let her go, like she’d asked. 

“Thanks guys,” he said, his throat tight. “I know it won’t be easy, but I’ll have to forgive myself. For Strelitzia’s sake. The longer I cling to her, the longer it’ll be before she can find peace. And me, too.”

Terra and Aqua both nodded, then hugged him again. He couldn’t put into words how grateful he was that he had friends like them, friends who’d stick with him through thick and thin. What a relief it was that they knew his deepest, darkest secret and, instead of condemning him for it, shone light and healing on it instead. Somehow he knew that Sora wouldn’t condemn him for it either, that he’d be glad all of this was coming to light and Ven was getting the closure and healing he needed.

He hugged Terra and Aqua back. When he released them, he thought he saw a flash of two orange pigtails and a sweet smile. But then it was over, and Terra and Aqua were smiling at him instead. 

Whatever he might face on their journey to save Sora, find his friends, and deal with the darkness, he knew he could handle it with the two of them by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to the mods and other participants of the Kingdom Heals zine! And thank you for reading!


End file.
